ARRL Special Bulletin ARLX038 (1995)

SB SPCL @ ARL $ARLX038
ARLX038 Dick Cotton, W8DX, SK
ZCZC AX08
QST de W1AW
Special Bulletin 38 ARLX038
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT August 8, 1995
To all radio amateurs
SB SPCL ARL ARLX038
ARLX038 Dick Cotton, W8DX, SK
Dick Cotton, W8DX, a former FCC engineer in charge at the Detroit
Field Office, died July 29, 1995, in Detroit. He was 89 years old.
He was born in Minneapolis in 1905 and graduated from the University
of Minnesota with a degree in ''radio engineering.'' He attended
university in the 1920s while also working as a shipboard radio
operator plying the Great Lakes.
Following a stint at a US government monitoring station on Mt. Hood,
Oregon, he joined the Federal Radio Commission's Detroit office in
the early 1930s. He was a government employee of the FRC and then
the Federal Communications Commission continuously until retiring in
1971, finishing his career as engineer in charge.
He was first licensed in the early 1920s, and held W8LEC before
becoming W8DX. An active DXer (331 Mixed as of 1986), he was one of
the first amateurs on the Oscar satellites and held satellite DXCC.
He was an ARRL life member.
His successor as EIC of the Detroit office, Ed Atems, W8BX,
remembered Cotton as someone who ''got on amateur television by
winding his own deflection yoke coil.'' In the early days he also
made his own variable capacitors. Atems retired in 1978. The
current Detroit EIC is Jim Bridgewater, AA8JD.
Richard Cotton was buried in Detroit. He leaves a son, Richard
Cotton Jr, and a daughter, Mary Green.
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